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Genetic testing after our miscarriage.

It has been months since I wrote anything current or consistent on my blog. Finding out at my 15 week appointment that my baby’s heart stopped beating, and the days and the months afterwards have been the hardest season of my life.

The first four months after my miscarriage were the roughest, because during that time we were waiting for the results of the chromosomal testing we had done on our baby.
Four months of agony wondering if I did something wrong during my pregnancy for my baby’s heart to stop beating.

When I first posted about my miscarriage family and friends were trying to be “considerate” by saying things like, “…even if you never find out what happens to your baby, God has a plan”.

Yes, I knew all of this. But it really didn’t help or even make me feel better in the moment, in fact, it made me upset.
In the moment, all I wanted was my baby to be still growing inside of me, I honestly didn’t care about God’s grand plan for my life, why was it that I have had to lose two babies in “in his grand plan” for my life?! Will I have to lose more babies in the future too?

It was too easy to get mad during these few months leading up to the testing results.

All that is needed to be said when someone goes through a pregnancy loss is validation. Validation that their feelings are ok. What this person is feeling is valid and then allow them to feel it and process it.

Funeral home.

As soon as we lost the baby, I knew I wanted to have our baby cremated. I asked the hospital to do a hand off to our funeral home we had been in contact with. I naïvely assumed that by the time everything was done with the cremation (2 weeks) that we would have the results of the genetic testing.

But, we didn’t.

When the funeral home handed us the little box that contained our baby’s ashes, I fell apart. Here was our child, and yet, we still didn’t know if our baby was a boy or girl. 

I joined a bunch of miscarriage support groups this go around and I even did a few months of grief counseling during the time I was waiting for my testing results.

Genetic testing

On top of the chromosomal testing, we also had a test done to find out our baby’s gender. So, even if the answer of our baby’s testing was inconclusive. We would definitely have an answer to what the sex of our baby, and that is all I needed. That would be enough for me.

After 4 months of waiting we found out that our baby was a little girl and she had Turners Syndrome.
Turners Syndrome is a chromosomal abnormality where a female is either missing a chromosome completely, partially, or the chromosome is altered. It’s a condition that only affects females.

There are two distinct sex chromosomes we are born with, for females you are born with XX chromosomes, or if you are male, you are born with XY chromosomes.

Our baby girl was missing the other X chromosome.

Turners Syndrome is not inherited, it cannot be passed down, It’s just a random mutation that occurs in conception. It is said that 99% of pregnancies that have Turners Syndrome end in miscarriage or stillbirth. Live births only occur 1% of the time, so it is considered a very rare condition.

Although we were put in this very sucky situation, I am grateful that I was able to get the closure of knowing so many details of our baby.

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